Oblogatory

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Doctor, Will You Tell These Fools? I'm Not Crazy. Make Them Listen To Me Before It's Too Late!

Ambulance Driver: We had to dig him out from under the most peculiar things I ever saw.

Dr. Hill: What things?

Ambulance Driver: Well, I don't know what they are, I never saw them before. They looked like great big seed pods.

Dr. Hill: Where was the truck coming from?

Ambulance Driver: [King George, VA].

Dr. Hill: Get on your radios and sound an all points alarm.
Block all highways, stop all traffic, and call every law enforcement
agency in the state. [on phone] Operator, get me the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yes, it's an emergency!

-Invasion of the Body Snatchers

So I just got back from an overnight job down in Virginia. It was a job from hell too... definitely payback for all those more exotic locales where I usually get to play in for a week or two. I left on Thursday morning at around 9, drove for five hours and then went right to work when I got there. It turned out to be one of those times where Murphy's Law was pumping iron and needed the good steroids.So what should have been two, maybe three hours worth of work setting up the next day's exam turned into ten. I didn't get to my hotel room until 12 pm, and I still had my administrative duties to attend, so I didn't get to bed until around 3 am. I of course had to wake up three and a half hours later to go back in to work to administer the exam. I got done with that, packed up all the equipment and got on the road by 2:00pm, hitting Philadelphia rush hour on the turnpike right around 5pm. Meanwhile, it was 90 degrees outside and my car's A/C was broke.

Despite all of this travail, I have made it home to report that I don't believe that Virginia really exists. I don't mean that there is not a US State that goes by the name of Virginia; What I mean is that it's a made up place. Like that playground in the first X-Files movie; the one that the secret shadowy people put up really fast in order to cover their tracks and make the site of their latest machinations look like it was an ordinary place. I've been down there a couple of times now, and that's always my impression of it. As you first enter Virginia via route 301, you immediately pass a Naval Warfare base. Everything is covered by trees, even scrapyards and auto places. In fact, all you really see are signs for scrap yards and auto places, and dirt roads leading to these supposed places of business

And the people... I almost didn't notice it at first, as I'm somewhat dismissive of the general human populace, but especially the American human populace. However I had to deal with some of the locals, and they had this peculiar trait of being curious about people from other places, as though there were any difference between a Virginian and a Pennsylvanian general populatory. (I think I just made that word up, by the way. It's supposed to connotate a member of the general populace, leaving out any indicator of an individual nature) But when some of the people found out I wasn't from the area, they'd get all questiony, rather like drunk college girls do to young men with British or Italian accents. It was strange and unsettling and brought home to me the fact that Americans in general don't get out enough. Also, they all work for the Government in one capacity or another down there. My job, in fact, was at a government contractor's site; one of those civilian weapon systems designer companies. They all have Secret or Top Secret clearance, and they tend to walk around with shrewd looks in their eyes, whether or not any of them have any call to look that way. People who think they're shrewd tend to don that glance, (like that stupid woman in that commercial who suggests going to Chili's for lunch as though it were an idea on par with the Grand Unified Field Theory) and people who are tend to hide it. Also, a large percentage of them are overweight in that way that only "poor" Americans can pull off. On the whole, it's a very unsettling package.

So due to all of this, my gut feeling is that Virginia is a place where the government hides it's pod people, poorly disguised as typical Americans, and that if there are any Virginians who are not pod people they just don't notice it because they're used to it and are in fact becoming assimilated. I see this as the future for the rest of America. I mean, obviously it's a national trend that's well under way, but I think it's something that as a social construct which covers an entire area, it's actually already complete down there. Freaky.

Nice work, using Invasion of the Body Snatchers as a point of reference. I used to say that about Bad Aibling. So, in a sense BA is a small scale VA.

You're correct, it's not limited to Virginia. Having made my way from the East and West coasts of the US on too many occasions by interstate, I can confirm this. The U Haul experiences were terrifying at times, but the Greyhound trips were downright hellish. You stop in every Buweiser pisshole, some of which probably aren't listed on maps. If they are, they shouldn't be.

I have thought about moving to some small town in the middle of nowhere, especially now that we have the internet. I wondered what a presence like mine would do to the community, or what the community would do to me. I kind of relate it to A History of Violence, the Cronenberg film. Though that does not begin to touch it accurately. We did manage to blend in well enough in Chiemsee (the EU equivalent?), so, my thoughts may be well out of line.

Sorry to hear you had to work 10 hours straight. Perhaps you know what my work-life is like now. I do that 5 days a week, sometimes 6. This last Friday I worked from 05:30 to 11:30 on Saturday. So, buck up, chum, you don't have it all that bad. I'm also working 7 days back to back. The grass is always greener, ... Lately, I don't feel as though I even have a lawn.

You are what you is
You is what you am
A cow don't make ham
(And it never will)
You ain't what you're not
(Unless SCIENCE do somethin' 'bout it!)
So see what you got!
(I KNOW dey woikin' on it)
You are what you is
(Underneath VIRGINIA!)
An' that's all it 'tis!

I guess the lackluster Virginia is nothing like the romantic Virginia that the pacific coast idealise about.... how about a "cyberpunk" Virgina??.... Hey!! you mentioned Heinlein a while back... boy!! look what I discovered: Paul Kanter from Jefferson Airplane loosely based the first 1970 Starship record "Blows Against the Empire" on a Heinlein novel!! see link: